Africa has highest number of women running start-ups vs established businesses

February 12, 2018

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Over half of the women in the region state they intend to start a business in 3 years, twice the percentage of those actually starting

NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 12– Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of female startup entrepreneurs relative to established businesses at 11 percent.

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report 2016/2017, 2 women in Sub-Saharan Africa start a business for every woman running a mature business compared to lower number of entrepreneurs in other regions.

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The report states that women in Africa are venturing into entrepreneurship largely to meet financial obligations and to close a market gap.

The findings are backed by the fact that entrepreneurship provides an option for many women in the region where there are few better income-generating alternatives and low job opportunities.

“Over half of the women in the region state they intend to start a business in 3 years, twice the percentage of those actually starting,” says the report.

Across the 63 economies included in the report business rates increased by an average 8 percent while the gender ratio by 9 percent.

Sub-Saharan Africa also leads in terms of the number of females who discontinued a business in the last one year.

Reasons for discontinuing include unprofitability at 42 percent, lack of finance at 14 percent and other reasons at 44 percent.

“The business discontinuance rate among women exceeds that of men at the first three levels of development, although only by about 10 percent. Given that women are less likely than men to start businesses; this means that, despite a smaller pool of businesses, there are more exits for women.”

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MARGARET NJUGUNAH I'm a business reporter based in Nairobi, Kenya. I'm passionate about feature stories on personal finance, development and technology.